Orange Moon Thursday, October 23, 2025 “More Blessed To Give”

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…

"More Blessed To Give"    

       

    Knowing that God loves us personally bestows a blessing beyond all measure regarding His devotion to us in the Lord Jesus Christ.  Consider the Apostle John, who thrice referred to himself as "the disciple whom Jesus loved" not because the Lord did not love His other followers, but because John was so amazed by the personal expression of devotion he experienced in Christ.

    "Now there was leaning on Jesus' chest one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved." (John 13:23).

   Another administration of God's love, however, even more reveals to us the wonder of His character and nature.  

    "The Lord Jesus said, It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:25).  

    "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given unto us" (Romans 5:5).

     If the love of God known and enjoyed in our hearts left us with merely the awareness that "God loves me" - true and wondrous as this is - we would remain in selfishness and egotism.  If, however, we increasingly discover the truth that the Holy Spirit reveals the love of Christ in us to direct our devotion to God and others, we far more realize the nature and extent of His love.  He loves us best and most by conforming us to the image of the Lord Jesus, who certainly knew Himself to be the Father's "beloved Son" (Matthew 17:5).  However, the vast majority of our Savior's life and emphasis recorded in the Gospels reveals His focus on loving God and others as the purest joy of His heart.  Our Lord works in us to foster and nurture the same glorious experience of most discovering how much we are loved by how much we love.  Since love expresses its glory in giving - "For God so loved the world that He gave " - "more blessed to give than to receive" can be viewed as synonymous with more blessed to love than to be loved (John 3:16).

   Every believer experiences this truth as the Lord works in us to love others.  We often realize we wouldn't be doing what we do in devotion to God and people were it not for His love "shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit."  As His selfless otherness passes through us, we behold the clearest and most vivid illumination of who the Lord Jesus is, and how blessed it is to "walk, even as He walked" (I John 2:6).  The bells of our hearts most brightly ring in such moments as we discover the truth of  "more blessed to give than to receive."  God loves me?  We will marvel forevermore.  God's love can enable me to love Him and others?  We will marvel even more, realizing we best know His personal devotion to us by leading us to personally devote ourselves to others.

    God's love is for us, wondrous beyond all measure.  It comes to us in countless ways, too glorious to describe.  It flows through us, returning to Himself as infused with our particular personality, disposition, and experience, and then unto others our Father privileges us to love.  All three administrations - for, to, and through - transcend every possibility to fully know and appreciate.  The latter, however, the love of God directing our devotion to the Lord Jesus and others, most reveals to us "the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge" (Ephesians 3:19).   It cannot be otherwise as God makes us like His Son, the wondrous One who "came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and give His life a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:28).  Yes, we best know how much God loves us by how much He loves others through us, as He enables us to…

"Walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and given Himself for us an offering and sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savor."

(Ephesians 5:2)

Weekly Memory Verse  

      Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of Mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock.

(Matthew 7:24)

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Orange Moon Wednesday, October 22, 2025 “Unworthy… Worthy”

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…

"Unworthy… Worthy"

    

       

    Jacob expressed one of the truest statements in all Scripture, and one that every born again believer in the Lord Jesus Christ echoes.

   "I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which Thou hast showed unto Thy servant" (Genesis 32:10).

    Jacob was most surely not worthy, nor are we.  The Lord Jesus Christ, however, was and is.  Throughout history, God has always related to those who trust Him not based who we are or what we have done, but rather by who the Lord Jesus is and what He has done.  The saints of old looked forward to a Redeemer promised in Eden, and the promises declared in the Old Testament law and prophets.  The saints of the New Testament look back on a promise kept, and a Savior known by name and the fulfillment of God's saving purpose.  This glorious salvation means that our Father gave to His Son what we deserve on the cross of Calvary, that He might give to us what Christ deserves as the freest gift ever given, purchased by the highest cost ever remitted.

    "He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (II Corinthians 5:21).

    "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?"

(Romans 8:32).

    In moments of blessing we know we do not merit, the Spirit of God beckons our hearts to see the Savior who merited all blessing as the sole basis of the mercy God bestows.  In times of failure, when we know ourselves worthy of rejection, God beckons our hearts to see the One who "bore our sins," and was "made to be sin" for us (I Peter 2:24).   Thereby, we arise to walk in the grace of His worthiness.  This elicits the dual sensibilities of humility and confidence that pervade the hearts of all who confess "I am not worthy" as the prelude to the anthem we will sing forever, "Worthy is the Lamb!" (Revelation 5:12).  

    He is.  Indeed, the Lord Jesus is worthy enough in the sight of our Father that His righteousness can be imparted to us as a free gift, purchased by the highest of all costs.  Christ's death made atonement for our sins.  His resurrection made possible and actual the gift  of eternal life  to all who believe.  His inherent righteousness avails as our imputed righteousness, providing relationship and standing  with God based solely on the Savior's person and work.  "Accepted in the Beloved" declared the Apostle Paul of our only hope for worthiness in the sight of God, and the only hope we need (Ephesians 1:6).  "I am not worthy!" rightly confessed Jacob.  We concur about ourselves, but in the light of the Gospel, we add in wonder, gratitude, and love, "Worthy is the Lamb!"

"And lest the shadow of a spot should on my soul be found, He took the robe the Savior wrought, and cast it all around!" (Isaac 

Watts, "Awake My Heart, Arise My Tongue").

"And Abraham received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised: that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised; that righteousness might be imputed unto them also.  And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness…  Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him.  But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead."

(Roman s 4:11; 22-24)

Weekly Memory Verse  

      Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of Mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock.

(Matthew 7:24)

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Orange Moon Tuesday, October 21, 2022 "I Want You To Have This"

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…

"I Want You To Have This"

    

     What do you give to the Person who has everything?

    "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein" (Psalm 24:1).

    My grandson Jackson helped answer the question many years ago, when he was three years old.  He and his sister Emma had spent the weekend with us, and the time came for them to return home with their parents.  Just before leaving, Jackson came up to me and stuck out his hand, which held a quarter.  "Grandaddy," he said with an expression both sweet and serious, "I want you to have this."  

   The Lord fills some moments with such blessing that we know we will never forget them.  I instantly realized this was one of those.  I smiled, took the quarter, and responded.  "Thank you so much, Jack.  This means so much to me, and I will keep this quarter forever!"  This meant entrusting the treasure to our family keeper of such blessings, my wife Frances.  It also meant the grace of the treasure still has a cherished place in the safekeeping of my heart.  

   What do you give to the Person who has everything?  Jackson's gift speaks to the question in a powerful way.  In the most literal sense, we cannot give anything to God since He is "the possessor of Heaven and earth" (Genesis 14:19).  In the sense of heart, however, we can give Him much.  Jackson's quarter would buy almost nothing in 2010 when he gave it to me (and far less today!).  However, in terms of value, the coin means more to me than I could ever express.  He gave a piece of his heart to my heart when he held out the quarter, along with the echoes of his voice that still resound deeply and beautifully within my soul: "Grandaddy, I want you to have this."  I am not embarrassed to admit that I will never remember that moment without tears forming in my eyes.

   I sometimes speak to our Lord in the terms Jackson voiced to me. "Heavenly Father, I want You to have this."  I then "hand to Him" praise, thanksgiving, awed appreciation of His wonder, and the glad affirmation that I belong to Him for His glory, will, and eternal purpose in the Lord Jesus Christ.  I do so in complete confidence that this blesses His heart: "The prayer of the upright is His delight" (Proverbs 15:8).  Indeed, my heart still delights in Jackson's long ago bestowal of a gift that can buy little of earthly substance, but which purchased a treasured moment that will be with me forever.  Even more, I am certain that our Father's heart feels the same when we "give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name" (Psalm 29:2).

    What do we give to the One who has everything?  So much more than we can imagine.  Thank you, Jackson, for a gift that blessed me in the moment you bestowed it.  It blesses me even more every time I remember it.  And praise You, Lord, for having such a heart that Your children can bestow upon you gifts from our hearts that mean more to You than we will ever know.  "The Lord taketh pleasure in His people" (Psalm 149:4).

    A final thought: the quarter Jackson gave to me was minted in the year of his birth, 2006.  I am sure that at three years old, he did not realize this.  But the One who led him to bestow the gift did.   "I want you to have this."  Jackson gave such a gift, as did the Lord who taught me something wonderful about Himself.  Yes, we can give something to the One who has everything.

"O Lord my God, I will give thanks unto Thee forever."

(Psalm 30:12)

Weekly Memory Verse  

      Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of Mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock.

(Matthew 7:24)

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